Dedicated to Truth

Dedication · Senior Member

The 7 Day WEEK in history

Dedication · Senior Member

When reading history books we need to realize one fact.

Most historians write from an evolutionists standpoint. Events such as a seven day creation, or a world wide flood, do not enter into their accounts in any realistic way. As we go back in history to find the origin of the seven day week, we find historians depicting a rather primitive people trying to figure out how to count time.

What we need to do is strip away the evolutionary base, and align the findings with the Genesis story of scripture.

A browsing through the internet soon reveals that a good number of people are teaching that the Israelites got their seven day week, and even their Sabbath, from Babylon or from the myths that pre-date Babylon.

What does this tell us?

It tells us the seven day week has been in existance from the earliest of civilizations.

The Bible tells us how the seven day week originated.
The fact that it is found in Mesopotamia (the cradle of civilization) since that's where a large portion of Noah's descendants dwelt soon after the flood, only helps confirm the Biblical story.

Israel, however, did not get the seven day week, or the Sabbath from Babylon, they got it from the ONE Who created the seven day week in the first place.

Dedication · Senior Member

The reason for this study?
Critics have come against those who uphold the Sabbath to say there was no seven day week in ancient history, outside of Judiasm, especially not in the Roman culture, thus Christians did not change from Sabbath to Sunday to coincide with any pagan worship day.

Yet when we follow history we do see the seven day week -- altered to the seven day planetary week of the pagans and even though not the official calendar in Rome till later, it was used in Rome even before Christ.

But let's go back in history to

Harren (Haren)

This city lies between the Euphrates and Tigress and dates back to ancient Bible days. Abraham was well familiar with Harren.

According to Wikpedia
The city of Ur established Harran as a merchant outpost around 2000 BC, and it was still according to Roman authors such as Pliny, an important position in the economic life of Northern Mesopotamia even through the classical period, Known by the Romans as Carrae or Charrae.

The Planetary Calendar was used in Harren.
Now -- the Planetary Calendar still used the seven day week, but instead of calling the days by number names as in scripture, they named the days after their planetary gods -- the sun, moon, and five planets.

According to S.H.Langdon in "The Mythology of all Races" Vol 3, page 154

"The adherents of the cult of Sin (Moon worship) at Harran were known as Harranians or Ssabeans among the Arabic and Syriac writers, and their doctrines were transformed by Greek philosophy and Gnosticism. Their week of seven days is certainly not of Christian origin, but probably a direct inheritance from Babylonia. The first day was sacred to Ilios, the Greek Helios (Sun god), the second to Sin (moon), the third to Ares, the fourth to Mercury, called Nabug or Nebo, the fifth to Bal or Jupiter, the sixth to Balthi or Venus, and the seventh to Saturn, or Cronus."

Babylonia is located very close to where the ark descended, and Noah and his family emerged to repopulate the earth.
Being a man that "walked with God" Noah was familar with the seven day week.
Babylonia inherited the seven day week from Noah, but then changed the names to honor gods of their own making. (Sun, moon, planets)
Harran probably did inherit the planetary week from Babylonia.

Ruth · Veteran Member

Dedication wrote:
The reason for this study?
Critics have come against those who uphold the Sabbath to say there was no seven day week in ancient history, outside of Judiasm, especially not in the Roman culture, thus Christians did not change from Sabbath to Sunday to coincide with any pagan worship day.
Yet when we follow history we do see the seven day week -- altered to the seven day planetary week of the pagans and even though not the official calendar in Rome till later, it was used in Rome even before Christ.

What I preceive is that the Devil hates the Sabbath and from the very beginning has set about to destroy it. The Sabbath is God's set aside time to link humanity with their Creator God. The Bible is full of texts that tell us God is worthy of worship because He is our Creator, He is the One Who made us, He is the One Who sanctifies us. It is a sign that we accept the Creator as our God and that we are His people.

What we see in history is a grand war against our Creator God. We see this in modern times with the whole evolution system and the war against God's Sabbath day.

We see it in ancient times. If I remember correctly the Babylonians had the 7th day Sabbath as well, but they did exactly the same thing that modern Babylon (the Roman church) did to the Sabbath. They made it a day to be dreaded. I'll have to research that again to get the details. The Roman church made the Sabbath a day of fasting and sadness to wean people away from it. The ancient Babylonians, as I recall, made it a day when the "gods" rested, and people had to work to appease the gods. When I read it I couldn't help but think that's what the critics are still telling us the Sabbath was all about -- Babylon -- how fitting that the modern counterfeit is called by the same name.

Jesus said, "The Sabbath was made for man" in Mark 2:27

Next we see the devil's constant attempts to destroy the seven day week.
In the early civilization after the flood they had the seven day week, but dedicated those days to pagan gods or planetary system. Sun, moon, planets.

Then we see 10 day weeks (and some other combinations) introduced. That is still being attempted at rather regular intervals in more modern times. It was attempted during the French Revolution, and more recently I ran across promotions on the web for a 10 day week calendar.

So, as I began, the devil has been waging his war against God's Sabbath from early times. He seeks to divorce people from the Creator God.

Dedication · Senior Member

Sorry for not answering sooner. Been busy.
Wish I had more time to devote to study.

There's a saying " all false religions lead to Babylon.

Babylon in its earlier forms (Shinar, Babel, Sumar, ) changed the truth of God into a myriad of counterfeits. They had the direct link with Noah, a man who walked with God (Gen. 6:9), they had the knowledge of truth, but rebelled against it and perverted it.

That they had the 7th day Sabbath shows up consistently enough that I'm sure they received it from Noah. But then we see the perversions.

How those people could pervert the true story so, is hard to understand. Why they would turn to "gods and goddesses" of their own making who act like spoiled, powerful brats, instead of worshipping the Creator God, is also hard to understand. But that is how sin works -- even today.

The sources for these ancient reports are mainly by humanists who write the story completely backwards, yet the facts are recorded.
That is, they claim the Babylonians made up their myths, and the Hebrews adapted them to their culture.

We of course, believe the truth is in scripture and Babylon perverted it, so God chose a people to be "keepers of his truth" which was carefully recorded in the Torah.

In Scripture, God created the world for mankind to enjoy, the Sabbath was created for man, not man for the Sabbath. God sanctified the Seventh-day, at the end of Creation, making it a day of rest for the soul and heart.

In the Babylonian story, there is some veiled suggestion to the Great Conflict. The lesser gods dispose of the higher gods that produced them and take charge in their caprice way, of humanity. (A crude retelling of the fallen angels shaking off God's authority and running the world)

These lesser gods then create people from the blood of the deposed god, to be their slaves. (Is that a recast of satan luring Adam and Eve away from his Creator and enslaving his descendents in sin) But the people make so much noise that the gods can't rest or sleep so they decide to destroy the people. One of the gods warns one human and tells him to prepare for a flood. The flood itself lasts seven days, on the seventh all mankind is destroyed and the gods finally have a day of rest. That's how the myth goes on how sabbath originated. The Sabbath according to these myths is thereafter a time for people to enable the gods to rest.

Following is an interesting quote:

Though Genesis shares many of the theological presuppositions of the ancient world, most of the stories found in these chapters are BEST READ AS PRESENTING AN ALTERNATIVE VIEW TO THOSE GENERALLY ACCEPTED IN THE ANCIENT NEAR EAST. Genesis 1-11 is a tract for the times challenging ancient assumptions about the nature of God, the world and mankind (p. xlv). An understanding of ancient oriental mythology is essential if we are to appreciate the points Genesis 1-11 was making then (p. xlvi)...It is my conviction that many of our problems are caused by misunderstanding the original intentions of Genesis...many of the individual episodes in Genesis 1-11 may be seen to have a distinctly polemical thrust in their own right, particularly against the religious ideas associated most closely with Mesopotamia (p. xlviii)...Viewed with respect to its negatives, Genesis 1:1-2-3 is a polemic against the mythico-religious concepts of the ancient orient... THE SEVENTH DAY is not a day of ill omen as in Mesopotamia, but a day of blessing and sanctity on which normal work is laid aside.In contradicting the usual ideas of its times, Genesis 1 is also setting out a positive alternative (p. 37) (p. xlviii. Gordon J. Wenham.Word Biblical Commentary, Genesis 1-15. Waco, Texas. Word Incorporated. 1987)

Dedication · Senior Member

There is some interesting biological evidence for a seven day week which highly suggest a Creator that instituted the seven day week.

The relatively new science called chronobiology has discovered circaseptan rythmn or cycles of seven days in many living things. How did such a cyclical pattern of seven days in living things arise?

Evolution does not give the answer, but belief in a Creator Who instituted a seven week cycle does!

"At first glance, it might seem that weekly rhythms developed in response to the seven day week imposed by human culture thousands of years ago. However, this theory doesn’t hold once you realize that plants, insects, and animals other than humans also have weekly cycles. . . . Biology, therefore, not culture, is probably at the source of our seven day week.”

Susan Perry and Jim Dawson, The Secrets Our Body Clocks Reveal, (New York: Rawson Associates, 1988), pp. 20-21

Or read Campbell's summary of the findings on rhythms in the science of chronobiology:

"Franz Halberg proposes that body rhythms of about seven days, far from being passively driven by the social cycle of the calendar week, are innate, autonomous, and perhaps the reason why the calendar week arose in the first place… These circaseptan, or about weekly, rhythms are one of the major surprises turned up by modern chronobiology. Fifteen years ago, few scientists would have expected that seven day biological cycles would prove to be so widespread and so long established in the living world. They are of very ancient origin, appearing in primitive one-celled organisms, and are thought to be present even in bacteria, the simplest form of life now existing.”

Jeremy Campbell, Winston Churchill’s Afternoon Nap, (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1986), pp. 75-79

Here are some links to confirm these findings:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7111982
"a circaseptan spectral component is remarkably prominent in mammalian organ transplant rejection, both in the clinic and in the laboratory."

and

"A built-in (genetically determined) about-7-day (circaseptan) period comes to the fore as a desynchronized feature of human time structure in the urinary excretion of 17-ketosteroids by a clinical healthy man:

http://www.oneradionetwork.com/atoms-blog-articles/circaseptan-superimmunity-divinity/

The above link discribes several seven-day (circaseptan) biological cycles.

And going back to the Bible,
why were baby boys circumcised on the eighth day -- or one week (seven days) after they were born?

Why did God tell them to wait a week? Because medically we now know that’s when the prothrombin is at maximum. Prothrombin is what causes the blood to clot, preventing endless bleeding. It peaks one week after birth and is never so high again.

There is an increasingly mounting evidence that seven week cycles exist in biological organisms.

Things like heartbeat, blood pressure, body temperature, hormone levels, the stress-coping hormone cortisol, the acid content in blood, red blood cell count, temperature, even the cycle of the common cold all seem to rotate on seven day cycle. Medical personal have long known that the response to malaria infection and pneumonia crisis peaks at seven days.

You can research it yourself under
circaseptan (seven day cycle)

Another link:

http://www.vibrantlife.com/?p=229

So who do we believe? We already know that the so called higher biblical critics' attempts to discredit the bible track record has been refuted many, many times as new evidence emerges. The Bible’s claims about history has been proven true time and again.

Could this evidence for circaseptan rhythms within people and other living things show that the Bible is right yet again regarding the seven day Creation Week and the Sabbath rest given to us by God from the very beginning?